What’s your Credibility as a blogger?

Information or the straight forward compilation and presentation of facts might seem to provide the power to the blogger to enable him to acquire credibility. But it is not all information that offers power to the information supplier.

The information that a blogger uploads onto his blog must be reliable information.

The internet is crowded with information. It is one huge virtual library, consisting of an unlimited amount of information. Anybody can publish and access it. Not only this, but sites are established to not only provide information. They are also there to persuade or sell, even to change attitudes and beliefs.

There is no overall controlling quality assurance authority that tests that all information provided on the internet has the same value and credibility. This lack of policing is what makes the information available subject to credibility testing.

The internet is a relatively new technology with the first site being posted in 1991. Of course email has been around for much longer. But it has only been in recent years, mostly since 2000 making it about nine or so years, that the internet has become a popular medium for sharing, trading and gathering information and products.

For the new users it is always a question whether one should approach the internet with skepticism or without questioning the material at all. Should users question the material and evaluate electronic information more so than printed material? In other words, what would make users consider the material to be valuable?

To answer this one needs to have a look at what credibility might be defined as.

Information that is credible shows authenticity, reliability and believability. Basically the key to credibility boils down to trust. How well can one trust the information found on the internet?

In order to be able to assess the credibility of the information found on a blog for instance there are some general questions that one might wish to ask oneself. These cover such aspects as whether one can believe the writer or source of the information. What makes one want to believe this writer and where did the writer obtain his information from?

In fact why would one want to believe this writer over another? These are some of the questions one would need to ask.

What adds to the confusion and the indecision one might have as to whether to believe the information to be credible is the fact that the internet was originally a source of academic information. This meant that overall the information found on the original web was fairly trustworthy.

With the advent of easy to use software to publish ones own content without needing serious technical skills it has become even more important to be able to evaluate the credibility of the information that is available to the user.

What does this mean for the bloggers wishing to establish their credibility?

It means more than any other medium, information and knowledge available over the internet is viewed with suspicion and a fair amount of skepticism and bloggers need to ensure that all their content is reliable and presented without contradiction and discrepancies.